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your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. today's thing that makes us go hmm is $80.3 million. that's the total sales of

staples last year. apparently there's a staple boom with sales climbing 3% year over year. who knew? i've got my stapler here. i think i have about three on my table. and it continues to be swing lined, by the way, that's the brand, the company that's been around since 1925. this one here is by the way a swing line as well. in the meantime markets are down but definitely off their lows. we're continuing to watch what is happening in cyprus. thanks so much for watching "street signs." "closing bell" is coming up next. hello and hi and welcome to "closing bell" for a monday. i'm bill griffeth here at the new york stock exchange where things started promising. but it's how you end that matters as we all know. >> it certainly has been quite a volatile day. i'm sue herera in for our colleague maria bartiromo. straight ahead on the show as bill mentioned, markets are trying to decipher exactly what that cyprus deal means to it.

mixed messages sending stocks all over the map today. we'll get to the bottom of what you need to know. >> yes, we'll get to that. that mixed message of what it means. so how fragile is this market? is it really dependent on bank friendly bailouts, no matter where they occur? a lot to get to as the doubters point to, today's action is evidence of a pullback that's coming sooner rather than later. >> we heard a lot of chatter about that this morning. and ford is really feeling the heat after this ad was released showing women bound and gagged in the trunk of a car. >> how nice is that, right? >> how did that ever get out into public in the first place? why would they even consider putting together an ad like that? coming up, we'll have a very revealing look at how small oversights can have some very big consequences. >> that's not the only ad. there's a couple of them. we'll show you the other one as well. let's get you caught up in the markets, how we're trading so far today. let's get off that graphic. thank you. dow down 62. volatility. it's all the dutch finance minister saying early on that the cypriot bailout is a

template for other bailouts down the road. that scared the heck out of the markets. late in the afternoon he said, well, no, maybe it is a special situation and the markets came back but not a lot. dow still down 69 points at 14,442. the nasdaq at this hour is down 11 points at 3234. that's the s&p we've been watching, waiting to see if we can get an all-time high for this indicator. it needs to be up 8.25 points today to hit that all-time high going back to october of '07. we're down six points now at 1550. about 15 points away from that number. one more hour left in the trading session. let's get to the market action in today's closing bell exchange with danny hughes from divine capital, bert white from lpl, jim bianco from bianco research and our own rick santelli. we're learning all kinds of things, danny, about cyprus and the bank bailouts and the dutch finance minister. and he's learning about what you can and shouldn't say in public, too, right? >> and the new risk of the day.

risk ala mode. if you're not insured, be very afraid. >> assuming the cyprus bailout is the template. >> that's right. it seems to me -- we've got a couple of weeks more of head shaking and fretting to go through before we really know what's going to go down. i think that those that are not insured, those people that are not insured, and that includes a lot of large corporations, don't forget. so there's a few things happening that are on the table right now. we're at the end of the quarter. japan's year end is just about to happen. there's an awful lot of moving of moneyny around to global lines. i think we're going to see even more repatriation. the market is really shaky. >> right. >> started right around the middle of the day today. >> rick santelli, though, i would have expected a much bigger inflow into bonds given the kind of knee jerk reaction we saw in the stock market. and we didn't get as much as i thought we would. why? >> well, i think that the markets have somewhat priced in at least on the fixed income

side the type of interest rate flight to safety landscape that one size fits all. and i think one of the reasons that we haven't seen a big sector rotation, one of the reasons the big selloff that kind of started in november and gained traction from the conventional wisdom crowd, but it didn't gain traction, is for this very reason. we have a giant world water balloon of banking issues and insolvency. and no matter how you squeeze it to contain it, something always pops out. so 10-year rates are only down -- here's the neat thing. whether you look at the euro versus the dollar, euro versus the yen, pound, aussie, canadian, all patterns lead to nobody wants to call the euro home. >> not right now. as we know, as the euro goes, so goes the u.s. equity market. as it goes lower, so do we. burt white, according to you, at least we've got the fed, right? >> no doubt about it.

the fed has really been the savior here. this market has become not only tolerant but reliant on really stimulus and bailouts. but i'll tell you, cyprus really was somewhat of a shot across the bow. at the end of the day there's a lot of concern about what this might mean going forward. this is a teeter totter market. up and down and not going anywhere. but the real risk, the real risk here is a policy mistake. that's really what cyprus reminded the market about. >> jim bianco, can you address that, please? one of the issues that really has people shaking their heads is if and when they can get the banks open. you have a bank restructuring that's being put in place. whether it's a template or not is still to be straightened out, obviously. however, people still can't get to their money. >> that's exactly right. it doesn't matter what has been announced today or does announce today, the rubber's going to meet the road tomorrow. when the banks reopen, all except for the two biggest banks in cyprus, the bank of cyprus and lockheed bank, the rest of them are going to open. there are going to be big

queues. is everyone going to rush to get their money out? we f we do, there'll be a banking crisis on wednesday. if everything is calm it's the beginning of the end. this thing is going to unfold quickly. if it unfolds messy in cyprus and chaotic in cyprus, look to s slovenia, malta. >> in fact, there is a question whether or not the cypriot banks will be able to open tomorrow. michelle caruso-cabrera will join us live from nicosia coming up at the next segment. stay tuned for that. how much of the action we're getting now is just an excuse to look for a reason to sell right now? >> everybody's looking for that excuse, it's true. but this has affected some major banks across the board in europe. bank of santender. being european banks. big french banks. all down 5%, 6%, 7%, 10%. >> point well taken.

there have been plenty of times when there have been other events that have come and gone that would seem to have put a dent in our market and we continued higher anyway. now that's not happening. >> that's right. it's still not happening. what's the impetus for that selloff everybody's waiting for? perhaps it's not going to be something like this, some kind of global concern. >> to play devil's advocate, though, we did see our financials get hit today. >> that's right. >> and one would think that they would be the beneficiaries of capital flows leaving europe in one way, shape or form and coming to the united states. we didn't see that, which some of the people that i'm talking to down here on the floor say that may be one of those warning shots that we need to pay attention to. >> it could be. but it could also be another excuse. because as you have said before and as we're all waiting for, it's that downturn, that excuse to sell off into something. it really hasn't been that yet. it could come along very soon. >> mr. chief investment officer, burt white, where are you putting money to work in these uncertain times? are you selling on the rallies? are you buying on these brief

dips we get these days? >> we think the market is overbought here. we've been trimming into these rallies. every time the word all-time high is spoken we sell a little bit more into it. we certainly think the market's going to pull back a little bit. once it does, that'll be a great opportunity to jump into a market that's really improving. but right now it's just too overheated and overbought to really put new capital to work. >> if you did, though, what areas do you think look -- would look attractive? what fits into your investment plan? >> sure. we really like home builders right here. we think the housing recovery is for real. we've been putting a lot of our assets and beginning to really increase our allocation to home builders and that whole space. we think that's going to continue to do extremely well and the housing recovery is certainly for real. we're going to get more data this week to confirm that. we think that's a great place to begin to continue to add allocations to in this volatile market. >> a couple seconds left. let's hear from jim and danny.

your best investment idea now, mr. bianco? >> look to be buying in a pullback. i'm a believer in the fed. the fed is going to continue to pump liquidity and continue to push risk markets higher. be careful if the data gets too good because it might shut off the fed. that's a bigger problem than good data. >> what are you going to buy here, then? >> probably buy risk assets. i always like gold. i think as long as the fed is going to continue to push, though it's been struggling now, it'll probably continue higher. >> it has struggled. right around $1,600 right now. danny? >> still chasing yields like much of the rest of the world. so i'm still buying, you know, nice dividend players. at&t continues to be a good one. >> folks, thank you for joining us. thank you all. let's get a check on the stocks that have been the biggest movers today. josh lipton is following that beat for us. >> hey, sue. round-up of leaders and laggards today. let's start with some names in the green. dell is climbing higher. blackstone and carl icahn make

offers for the company at valueuations above the deal the company reached with michael dell and silver lake last month. dell down some 40% this year. how about apollo group? the for profit education company ripping higher. another name in the green. second quarter profit drops 79%. revenue fell amid lower enrollments. still, results besting the street's expectations. another name we should mention, dollar general, telling us today that sales growth this year could best the strength in 2012. but the company's rival, family dollar, actually slipping. analysts tell me part of the problem here, dollar general now saying it's roll out of tobacco products exceeding expectations. remember, family dollar got into the tobacco business about a year ago. so some worry now about the impact the company might feel. blackberry another name in the red. goldman sachs cutting its rating to neutral on this one. price target 17 bucks. the analysts talking about the disappointing u.s. launch of the new z-10 smartphone. we'll end here on facebook. falling to the lowest level this

year, since trading at a six-month high of 32.51 on january 28th. facebook shares down some 20%. sue? back to you. >> thank you very much, josh. we have less than an hour to go before the closing bell. the dow jones industrial average now down 76 points on the trading session. and the s&p is slightly lower as well. >> was down 117 at the low of the day in case you're keeping score. stocks may be slumping. sam stovall sitting over there has his eye on something that could fuel the next leg of this historic market rally. find out what it is and how you can profit from it coming up. they say don't fight the fed, right? or should you fight the fed? some now begging to differ with that age-old saying. you'll want to hear this one coming up. from the department of what on earth were they thinking, ford apologizing for this controversial print ad. and another one we'll show you as well, including one showing paris hilton kidnapping the kardashian sisters. yes, that's what you're looking at right there.

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welcome back. stocks have been riding the cyprus roller coaster again today. world markets just trying to figure out if this deal reached over the weekend is specific to that country in the terms reached or a template for future bailouts as was suggested at one point today. our chief international correspondent michelle caruso-cabrera is in nicosia. she has the very latest. good evening, michelle. >> reporter: hey there, bill. to answer the question, which is it? it is both. here's the case for why cyprus is absolutely a template. europe has made very clear they want to eliminate taxpayer-funded bailouts by 2018. and each and every bailout, subsequent bailout, has gotten tougher and tougher on investors. remember, this is the fifth one. the first one was ireland. ireland, the government of ireland did not want to bail out senior bondholders and banks. but the european central bank insisted that they do so.

they were apoplectic about that idea. today they wiped out the senior bondholders. not just senior bondholders. european investors and investors in europe should be on notice as of today that you have to be more careful when you're investing in european banks and you should have known that long before the dutch finance minister said what he said today. now, here's why the cyprus situation is unique. that's when it comes to punishing uninsured depositors. cyprus's banking system is huge relative to the size of its economy. their banks are almost all entirely deposits. at least the two ones that were failing. most of the other banks in europe have a lot more junior and senior debt. big fat cushions that sit between potential losses and uninsured depositors. so the likelihood of this particular situation happening again? highly unlikely. but you're going to have to be more careful. that's the bottom line. bill?

>> michelle, the question we're all wondering about here in the states and i guess around the world is will the cypriot banks will able to open tomorrow as had been expected? >> no. no. they've finally put out a statement and acknowledged what we were all beginning to realize would be true. they cannot. they're going to open up the two troubled banks on thursday, they hope. they claim they're going to open up nontroubled banks as well. that's going to be difficult. remember, banks talk to each other, right? there's all kinds of intrabank business that happens. it's going to be slightly problematic. we'll have to see how that plays out. plus we're going to see if there are runs on those previously healthy banks tomorrow if, indeed, they do open, bill. >> in fact, the president of cyprus has said they're going to impose some limited capital controls on those banks. i guess they'll do what they can to try and limit the run on the banks there. michelle, thank you. great job as always from nicosia. so the u.s. economy may be growing at a snail's pace. but our next guest says growth

in emerging markets will be strong enough to support the u.s. market for quite a bit longer. >> in fact, he's expecting 5.5% growth in those countries by the end of the year. sam stovall is back with us to make the case. that's quite an impressive growth rate. where's it going to come from, though? >> well, traveling around the west coast last week a lot of clients were asking me, how do we end up with rising earnings here in the u.s.? how do we end up with an expanding pe multiple if we're in a below average economic growth rate here? and i remind them that a lot of the companies, 50% of revenues come from overseas. most of the growth coming from the emerging markets. a lot of that is indigenous growth. a lot of that also is growth that they are -- from an exporting perspective. >> right. >> certainly i'm not saying that there is a trigger that is being unexamined at this point. but indicating to investors that 'en though emerging markets are down about 3% this year versus u.s. markets up close to 9%, that because we're expected to

see growth, earnings growth as twice that of the u.s. and the valuations at 11 are two percentage points below u.s. valuations, definitely don't give up on emerging markets. that's where mostly economic and earnings growth will likely come from. >> however, the dollar has been strengthening recently. if that continues that's not good for companies that do a lot of exporting overseas, then. >> true, a lot of companies do hedge their currencies. however, also what we're finding is that if you go back to the mid-1980s when the u.s. dollar index was introduced, that basically comparing that with the s&p 500, the correlation is zero. so you find that there are times that there is positive correlation with the dollar and the markets, negative correlation. so it really is driven by a lot of other factors and a lot of which you can pretty much hedge away. >> what about domestically, though? you look at the resilience of our market. we just had dani hughes here earlier saying everybody's

looking for that excuse to sell because we have gone pretty much straight up. and so far they haven't found it. i mean, the resilience of this market in the face of the headline risks that we've had recently is pretty impressive. >> a lot of the headline risk, i think, is pretty old. i like to say a boxer is rarely felled by the punch he expects. so it's going to be a punch that we're really not expecting that knocks us out. markets just don't go up forever. so obviously we will experience a pullback, a correction. we usually do that 3% higher than getting -- than after we get back to break even on the s&p. so it'll happen. we're not sure what. our recommendation would be you'd be better off buying than bailing. these declines have yet to morph into a brand-new bear market after getting back to break even. >> as we sit here, sam, the market continues lower. the dow now down 83 points, 84, almost 85 points. as the selling continues here. the last time you were with us,

you were positing that perhaps if the s&p were to hit its all-time high that could serve as a short-term top for the market. we still haven't hit it. came very close. i wonder if we're looking at the possibility of a long awaited period of selling. >> oh, sure. i like to say that prior highs serve as rusty doors and require several attempts to finally break them open. so i would have been surprised if we broke through on the very first attempt. so several attempts is not a surprise. when we do finally break above that, get back to break even, you know, we could rise another 3-plus percent over a two month period and possibly stumble again. >> you still have a pretty rich target for the s&p by the end of the year. >> s&p equity analysts for the coming 12 months have a target of about 1680, putting all our targets, bringing them up to the s&p 500 level. >> very good. always good to see you. sam stovall joining us today. we'll show you the chart as we head toward the close with about 40 minutes left in the trading session. the dow is starting to continue

lower here, down 75 points just off the lows from the session. we were down 117 at the low of the day. >> it's been -- volatility is back. 5% move to the upside in the vix today alone. all right. how's this for one of the best returns this year? i bet you wouldn't guess it was best buy. but the shares are up nearly 100% in 2013. up next, we'll hear from somebody who says this stock is still a best buy. then, blackberry, meanwhile, had been another red hot stock lately. but worries about how popular its new smartphone will be has been weighing on that stock today. can this once high flier recover? both sides of that issue coming up on "the closing bell." stay tuned.

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best buy stock continues to rally today, up another 1.5% after that company announced its founder, richard schultz, is returning as chairman of the company. shares of the electronic retailer up an astounding 95% in three months. so is that stock the best buy for your portfolio right now even with this run up? let's talk about that in talking numbers today. on the technical side it's carter worth with oppenheimer. on the funding side abigail doolittle with the seaport group. what does that look like? too late to get in here? >> one heck of a move. three months january being around 11. here we are in the low 20s. the issue is this. you've broken all sorts of down trends meaning the stock has been going down not only for the

last two years which you can see on the chart but look at the long-term chart. this stock is at 60. momentum is a powerful thing. who would ever think how quickly a sports team can change or political election. most importantly in stocks. this thing has gone from 60 down to almost 11. this move to 22, we think it's got leg. we think it's going up 25, 26. >> we'll give you props. you called for this earlier this year. we'll point that out. >> thank you. >> good job on that. abigail, what to you think? fundamentally, richard schultz, is it good he's coming back? >> i think it's a sell on the news type of event. i think while it's positive his 20% in the company is less likely to be sold, i think that it does not change the fact this company has a very difficult turnaround ahead of itself. it's playing in a low growth space with very price transparent products. that sort of commodity like aspect to its business does not give it a lot of flexibility to make a turnaround. you can only close so many stores, cut so many people. it's really hitting the bottom line. if you look two years ago this

company put up 364 in the bottom line for the year expected to be reported next february, they're looking for 219. i think this is a sell moment. i think that par bollic up trend of this year is likely to reverse down. i think we could see a single digit stock within 24 to 36 months. >> fundamentals are horrific. i was in my first one, i was buying a cover for an ipad. what a depressing place. the reality is that has nothing to do with whether one can make money. the stock has got people trapped. there are a lot of bears. there's huge short interest. for now i think the pain trade if you will is up. it's got a little more in it. >> you could be right. but i think that a lot of the up trend of this year, that parabolic spike has been some short covering. i agree with you. it's a tough place to shop. i think the real competition is online. they're trying to move in that space but they're so far behind that when we look at the numbers, revenue, earnings, ebitda, they're all going in the wrong direction. even the cfl expected their

price matching program is going to put them under significant pressure for q-1. i think they have a tough road ahead. >> tough road ahead, i would agree. i think you can rent the stock and keep making money. >> you might be right on that. long term i think a single digit stock. >> all right. not exactly a vote of confidence for the geek squad. >> i was going to say. >> thank you so much for joining us today. we're almost down triple digits right now on the dow jones industrial average. off about 91 points on the trading session. the s&p is also lower on the trading day. we are approaching that closing bell. we have just about a half an hour to go. >> yes, we do. the ultimate bear himself, harry dent back with us issuing yet -- continues to issue this dire warning for stocks previously on this show. listen. oh, it's not the emergency broadcast system. it's harry dent coming back and his forecast. and it's gotten worse, believe it or not. stay tuned for that happy moment. >> i can't wait. and is the fed getting too much credit for this historic

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fed chairman ben bernanke speaking today. our steve liesman says you might want to listen to what another person from the fed is saying. steve, what's that all about? >> sue, i want to talk in just a second about new york fed president bill dudley, talk more directly about monetary policy. first a word on fed chairman ben bernanke. he's speaking in london with mevvin king, outgoing head of the monetary policy committee there. he broadly supported all the global monetary policy easing for central banks around the world, say k effectively it was not currency. here's what he said. >> because stronger growth in each economy -- these policies are not -- rather they are positive sum enrich thiy neighbr actions. >> what he's saying is what japan is doing is okay. new york fed president bill dudley, he had some very strong

words for critics of the federal reserve who say that the fed is potentially going to be losing money through its current quantitative easing policy. let's give a listen to his comments today at the new york economic club. >> the fed is a central bank, not an asset management company. our commitment is to our dual objectives. >> dudley added over the course of the entire cycle, the fed -- only seemed to have benefited the economy and increased benefits to the treasury. a couple other dovish comments. the fed must continue to keep policy very accommodative. and the greater risk than cost is in tightening prematurely. >> let's talk about this. how much credit of this market being at or near all time highs can we place at the feet of the federal reserve? are its actions really the key driver here? >> cnbc contributor ron insana

says the fed is helping but the improving economy is doing the heavy lifting. jeff cox does not agree. steve liesman is sticking with us. how much do you attribute the move in the markets to the fed's continued support? >> listen, a lot of it is certainly in the beginning of this bull market, sue and bill, at the very start when the fed launched the zero interest rate policy, launched quantitative easing, that and other federal bailout programs accounted for 100% of the impetus for this stock market to move. i think gradually over time the fed counts for less but it's still extremely important. i would say 60% right now is the fed and 40% is, look, you have corporate cash that's at record levels being used for dividends and buybacks. reducing, absolutely reducing the net available supply of stock. you have an improving economy. other factors that have really turned positive of late. the fed is still an enormous player. always is. i don't think it's as much as it was at the start of this bull market in march of 2009. >> jeff? >> i actually am going to take the rare step here and agree with a number of the things that

ron had just said. i happen to believe, though, that the fed is a much larger player here than they even want to admit. some of the comments that i heard that steve just played before, i'm a little befuddled about. i would love to go through them one by one. i think just in a broad sense here that if the fed is becoming less of a factor, then why are we increasing the fed's involvement in the markets? that's the thing that i don't understand. i know that steve's answer is going to be this issue about unemployment. but i'm going to tell you that all of the surveys that i'm seeing, everything the economy is telling us, that the employment problem now is a structural problem and ben bernanke cannot get skilled workers out into the labor force no matter how much money he prints. the longer we go down this road the worse it's going to be for the markets. >> steve? >> he lobbed it right at you, steve. >> what i know is that the federal reserve is not yet ready to concede that, jeff. and you might be right. but what the fed does is point mostly to surveys that show that the unemployment problem is not

structural. just to explain what jeff is saying, he's taking one point of view out there, and he's doing so i think rather correctly, which is that if the unemployment problem is structural, then two things are true. one is that the fed shouldn't be pressing on the gas pedal because the car is not going to go anywhere. the second thing is it may be doing way more harm than good if that is true. i think the fed is saying, you know what? we don't see the surveys that show it to be true. secondly, we have to try at least for a while, because the alternative, jeff, is that -- is that we would have a permanent structural unemployment problem. >> here's the question i would love to ask bill dudley or ben bernanke. if this qe stuff is so great and all it's cracked up to be, why not do more of it? why not just print another $150 billion and buy a billion shares of the standard & poors 500 etf next month. jack the stock market up to the moon. why stop there if this is so great? >> quiet, jeff. they're going to listen to you. they're going to do it. >> no. >> let's go. let's do it.

if there are no costs in this, if this is as great as it's cracked up to be, why are we only doing $5 million a month? >> i think they think they're doing quite a bit of it. essentially open ended qe. they've gone from two programs, jeff, that have been limited in size. now they're saying this is open ended until we get financial results. really, if you hear what dudley and bernanke are saying, they're saying the big problem with the economy is that the fiscal side is contracting. >> ron, you know, the big question is as the economy improves, the fed will have to pull back. if they do it in such a fashion it's too abrupt, it can be very dislocating for the stock market. >> we know that from 1937 in the united states, we know from the miscues of the bank of japan in the early 1990s after their twin bubbles burst, you know, what people don't take into account when they discuss the fed, there is this presumption that this all by definition is going to end badly. first of all we don't know that. what we do know -- >> well, i do. >> well, congratulations. you're the only one who knows for sure. >> i'm pretty certain of that. >> let me make the point, though, first, before you you

trash it. what we do know is what would have happened had the fed not behaved in the manner it did. we know from japan's experience and from the experience of the 1930s when the fed was absent and when other policymakers were absent in a crisis the crisis got worse. you look at monetary velocity, it's falling off a cliff even though the fed has, in fact, produced or printed or made a lot of money as people like to say. an inaccurate way of describing the process. >> what scares me is when i hear these guys start to use words like manageable. because it reminds me of the word "contained" which is what behr b ben bernanke described the subprime crisis as, contained, before everything exploded. when these guys start talking about a situation that's manageable i get scared. >> jeff, i think what you're saying is interesting. i just don't know what the particular comment is. >> i think it's a high quality tried. i think investors should be staying high quality here. >> had you been banking on collapse or the fed being wrong on this thing, you really would be a poorer person today. >> 130% poorer.

>> the apock liptic attitude has not been the one that is the enriching position here. >> there was a point that this was productive, constructive for the market. we're past that point now. >> thank you, guys. we'll have a matador moment as we celebrate cal state northridge. the three of us went to school together. >> say hi to harry dent. >> you're missing that one, too. let's send it over to josh lipton for a market flash. >> i want you to check out quickly shares of tesla which are enjoying a nice pop here. a pop that coincides with a tweet from elon musk. musk saying an exciting tesla motors announcement coming on thursday. i'm going to put my money where my mouth is in a very major way. tesla enjoying a nice pop. up about 4%. up about 12% year to date. guys, back to you. >> oh, boy. >> here we go. >> he's not done, thanks, josh.

head twarowards the close. dow hovering at the levels, down 72 points at the moment. doesn't look like we'll get an all-time high today. >> no. we came very close in the s&p this morning, coming within a point of its all-time closing high. bob pisani on the reversal of fortune and when that new high might come. later, young people buying retirement homes, you say. well, it's happening a lot, actually. why some say it's a better investment right now than a 401(k). that's later on "the closing bell." >> really? >> yes, it is. >> wow. they don't have pictures of my kids. they don't have my yoga mat. and still, i feel at home. could it be the flat screen tv? the not so mini fridge? ♪ the different free dinner almost every weeknight? or maybe, it's all of the above. and all the rest. am i home? nope. but it almost feels that way. homewood suites by hilton. be at home. homewood suites by hilton. anbe a name and not a number?tor

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welcome back. you know, we were so close. we were just about a point away from the s&p 500's closing high earlier this morning. then we got that mixed message out of cyprus. >> the dutch finance minister. he poo-pooed the whole thing. bob pisani is here to tell us how to pronounce the gentleman's name. >> this guy has been the head of the euro group three weeks. think it's a little trial by fire for the poor guy? he said something that was quite reasonable today. think about it. he said, first off, we're going to tell in the future stockholders and bondholders should take the first hit when a

bank needs to be recapitalized. then the uninsured bank depositors should be asked to contribute something. lastly a bailout. that might be a reasonable thing to say. everyone jumped on this, this is the new template. his office came out and said every country is unique. this is not a new template necessarily. >> it shows us how on edge everybody is. >> most of us believe it is. >> which statement is the truth? which one does he really mean? >> it's good news for people worried about the moral hazard stuff. you can't have bailouts forever. it's a hazard, moral hazard. it's created a little more uncertainty. the question is your first question. when do we get to the new highs on the s&p? i think when we get a little more clarification on what the earning situation is going to be like in two weeks, if it's more like caterpillar and fedex, that's not good. closer to dollar general which has great comments today, particularly about top line growth, we will blink through new highs very, very quickly. i think it's going to take a couple of weeks and a little bit of stability in europe. >> this week in particular,

though, we have light volume. we have a holiday shortened week. we have religious holidays in the middle of the week. you know, i think it might be tough. the volatility was up 5% earlier this morning. >> a lot of people are on vacation. that won't necessarily prevent us from getting new highs. if the dutch finance minister will calm down a little bit and be a little more politic, though i think what he said was true in his comments, then things will calm down. you'll notice the european central bank came out immediately and said, hey, if anybody needs liquidity out there, we're here to help. >> exactly. doing their job. >> their meeting is next week. april 4th. you wait. they'll make another comment and say we're ready to help all the banks out. >> that meeting can't come soon enough. 15 minutes before the closing bell. right now, the dow is down 76 points. the s&p is down seven points on the trading session. >> you never know. are we going to get a new high today? i don't think so. >> i have to agree. >> you never know. 15 minutes left. stick around for that. also when we come back, strategists way in on how to protect your portfolio in case

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less than 15 minutes away from the closing bell. all-time high for the s&p apparently is going to have to wait at least one more day. our next guest says it's going to be a lot longer than that, though, maybe. >> perhaps. oliver bush from gary goldberg financial services joining us. also with us, matt mccormack from ball and gainer investment council. oliver, i'm going to start with you. you do see a correction coming in the s&p. how significant will it be and what will trigger it? >> we don't know what's going to trigger it. but saluations are certainly stretched at this point. we had 1550, 1560. that was above most people's targets for year end. you have to ask yourself there's going to be a little pullback. 4%, 5%, 6%. you've got the bank of japan, u.s. fed, ecb.

everybody's adding liquidity. >> there's plenty of money. >> that doesn't mean there's no risk in the market. smart investors shouldn't try to time things but look at high quality dividend paying stocks. matt and i were talking beforehand. we both agree that's the best place to be. the thing you should be doing right now in terms of paring back risks. >> did he give away your schpiel there? >> if you look at a stock leading s&p year to date it's netflix. 14 times price to book. in cincinnati we say that's a little bit overvalued. look at dividend paying stocks. they're cheaper from a pe perspective, price book perspective. they're paying you more to own them. i think there's going to be rotation into the higher quality names. i just don't know what the catalyst is. >> we keep hearing it. this is very much a stock picker's market. you got to be mindful of individual stox and not try and look at the overall market. >> this is a momentum based market. today volatility starts to pick up. i think we'll see more volatility pick up. we're going through a seasonal pattern. in the last four years the market so often in the

springtime, i think it's a time to be more conservative versus aggressive. >> we're going into a new quarter. a lot of people think the second half of this year we might drift a little bit. that we've seen the lion's share of our gains in the early part of the year. would you agree with that considering the velocity with which we went to the upside? given we're up 10% year to date -- >> if we were done now it would be fine. >> market times and trying to predict what the ultimate outcome is is very dangerous. don't try to get ahead of the market and second guess. momentum is still on the plus side. all the indicators are saying before year end you're going to see higher highs than we are see right now. but having said that paring back a little bit risk as matt pointed out, certainly the second quarter has not been a great one for investors in the past few years. and you're going into what's probably going to be a relatively difficult earnings season which is just a few weeks away. there's a lot of things that are turning to head winds. >> what about matt's point, look for higher quality? trade up? >> absolutely. >> you feel you can invest in

those? >> absolutely. high quality stocks that have less volatility in the market overall. something with a 50%, 60%, 70% beta compared to the overall market. pharmaceuticals, consumer tapele stocks, traditional defensive stocks. i would stay away from telecom. those valuations have been stretched. utilities also. they have very little rev newspaper growth. you want to avoid that. >> money center banks especially an area for croprofit taking. on average up 20%. superregionals up only 10%. they're cheaper and better managed. >> go for the quality. that's the message. >> a nice place to tie it all up. >> matt and oliver, good to see you both. coming up next, we're coming back with the dance? >> where if you think oliver's 5% to 7% pullback prediction is bad, you haven't heard anything yet. the uberbear, harry dent is back with us. his bloom mgloomy outlook might

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welcome back. inside the five minute mark here. let's review. >> yep. >> headline risk is what they call it. looked like we were off to the races first thing this morning. dow was in all-time high territory. s&p was this close. then the dutch finance minister came out and said, you know that bailout deal we came up with yesterday, that could be a template for future deals here in europe. this is what the market did. we fell out of bed. a 50-point gain became a 100-some-odd-point decline. around 1:00 eastern time he came out and said, you know, maybe cyprus is a special situation. and the market did recover. but not everything that we had gained on the morning. we've gone sideways since then. we're coming back a little bit here, down 50 points. it took its toll on the euro. that's really what this is all about. remember, as the euro goes, so goes the u.s. equity market. and the euro was continuing lower on the feeling that maybe the cyprus bailout is a

template, peter costa. what do you think? >> i don't think it's a template. to me, look at cyprus. it's a very small country. small model. they have some serious issues with their banking system. but i don't think that that's, like, something that's going to spread. >> that's the fear. right? once one country does that and is able to -- >> this is a spineless market. >> this is a spineless market. >> it's a spineless market. if there was some spine to it, this would not be that -- we'd not see 120-point move in the dow because of cyprus. you'd see some sort of blip and the market would continue to go higher. >> isn't that indicative of a market that's starting to top out here? >> yes. >> i know you're still looking -- >> no. my move was not that much more. i only thought we'd be 5% above the all-time high, which would get the s&p above its all-time high. you know what? there's not a lot of volume. number two, you're not seeing any kind of resilience. you're not seeing any kind of, like -- the market's